A defence of individuality, be it extremism (RIP Amy Winehouse)

Is it better to fade away or to burn out? This is the question on many minds after another early death in the tumultuous calling of being a talented rock star. 

Would you rather soar and fall magnificently, or roll along peacefully for a long time, perhaps never touching neither heaven nor hell? Is it a choice?

I feel its not a choice.

I feel we are each born with our own energy signature and our own limits and that they vary greatly. I also feel that we need to touch our personal limits to know where they are. Is it scary? Of course. Is it dangerous? Doubly so but what about the danger of not self-actualizing and never being the best we can be, if we want to know that border we can very easily feel its counter-part. 

I am not judgemental against drugs but of course the danger of drugs does lie in the loss of the innate knowledge of our limits and in crossing over and yet I cannot for the life of me see the "bad" in that either, life and death, hell and heaven, its a chaotic merry-go-round of course, but "bad" has sort of lost meaning for me, especially after all the experiences of the brightest light peeking out namely of the blackest of nights.

My personal answer is- I prefer to soar and to fall, because that's how I am and always have been. And were it not for my need to find the light as the anti-dote to the most dark states of my youth and were it not for the utter saving grace that fell on me in the form of mystical experiences years ago, I would not still be here, and in fact I still struggle with the thought of the easy ticket back "home" in now rare but inevitable occasions, though its not an option for me anymore, nor has it apparently ever truly been, I'm here aren't I. :) At the same time I am grateful for my hells cause I know they were my gateway to the heavens, and this seems to be a common experience. How can we judge those who make that oh-so-brave effort!

You have to have a little bit of extremity (your personal kind) to reach certain heights and that state IS groundless, shaky, unsafe, but we have to have the open mind to see that our borders might not be the same as the borders of others and thus the level of unsafety varies also. To judge those who are truly in the fires, while drifting on a raft in clear and peaceful waters- it seems unfair. And yes- sometimes its immeasurably hard to keep on going if you're going like that, sometimes it feels impossible. I do understand those who choose peace early on. On the positive note- the hells are inseparable from the heavens, but one CAN learn to get friendly with them. To all my fellow extreme beings I say- it gets better as the years go by, the most dangerous years are the late teens and early 20s, after that the worst is over and one has experiential knowledge of- I have survived once, twice, many times- I can survive this too and much easier. The heaven lengthens immeasurably, the hells get almost minuscule and its probable that one will feel very grateful for being exactly the person one is for all the blessings. 

Our personal limits are simply too varied to make judgements in the lines of- what a shame, what a waste of a talent, what a stupidity to get into that kind of life-style, most people who make judgements like that are living well within safe limits, and dub the people whose borders extend to the actual borders of experience, mentally ill. I disagree, with respect. Its so easy to put people on medication cause they don't fit in and are feeling so much more acutely, but if they know how to deal with it (and definitely at least it takes a long time to see if they are not innately able to learn how to cope with it), perhaps in fact soar as individuals namely because of these peculiarities- then leave them as they are, offer only love, a sympathetic ear and understanding. How can one living within safe borders truly know the minds and fates of such who are made to travel the full length of the human experience? And then again if some of those acutely feeling types choose to end this particular existence- by free will- then for me this is the true human right of every single person. What is this idea that everybody SHOULD live until they are old and sick, why do we judge people who are free of such ideas?

As a dweller of the borders my whole life- it is an existence that is full of life and death at the same time, in fact as much unbearably full of life as of death, no matter the duality and whats more- going beyond duality namely because of the extremes. Thankfully I personally had the faith in the light at the end of the tunnel even at those self-harming desperate times. I would not have wanted to dull myself down, to become someone not myself artificially, and by this- robbing myself of the gifts that were to come. It was a wisdom to trust myself. It is a wisdom of ourselves to be born exactly as we are. Self-awareness is the only drug we need.

So RIP Amy Winehouse, my full understanding for your struggles, and only my gratitude- for all the songs and talent!

The perfect day, the Red Book and the personal joys of each... a sort of a ramble...

And then comes the perfect day.

After months of dulled-down senses, dissatisfaction- that silent beast who refuses to reveal its reasons at times, social anxiety and longing for solitude, for total silence, for a return to myself- here I am.

I am here in the northern wilderness of Ireland, a county called Donegal- a meandering landscape of cliffs, hills, lakes, hills and cliffs. I have a few days off only so I am determined in the first half to be as alone as I possibly can, with a sort of desperation I hide myself away from social contact, when I'm at the dining places I carry the "Red Book" with me everywhere and I bury my nose into it from the start as a signal- I am alone cause I want to, I am busy, do not disturb. A needy solitude, there is nothing wholesome or joyful in such a state. 

Even though finishing this book was indeed important for me, I knew that I had for a long time battled with the same experiences, same divine madness if you want to use Jung's words- the same obstacles, Hells and Heavens and for some years the stand-still that comes from a unification of those Hells and Heavens. One would think that after such a feat and struggle all would be bright as diamonds, when good becomes the same as evil that there would be lasting peace but life is not static, or it wouldn't be life and any expectation along these lines brings misery as most of the worlds wise ones keep teaching. The experience of non-duality of life does bring peace but in a way its like a dead peace in the beginning. When life and death have become one, it does not feel in fact that necessary to live, or to die for that matter. Either of them is fine. This is not enough- much more is needed. Jung went to learn magic in the "Red Book" at such a phase, I do concur- this is the time to find one's personal magic, its different for each and every one of us, the recipe that keeps the spark going.

And then the desperation for solitude dissolved into a free and open solitude which holds back from nothing and nowhere and I have the 100 % perfect day. A day in the beauty of nature, in awe of every sight, every meadow, every stunning cliff and pristine beach, friendly villagers, playing with a pair of the most affectionate village dogs- totally happy, totally free, totally alone in the being one with everything- that's the wholesome joy of "solitude". Finishing off with a perfect dinner at an italian restaurant, all the needs met, and more, and now reading the easy going wonderful book called "Eat Pray Love" (not in opposition with my serious work on the Red Book whatsoever). The secret of life in three words. My perfect day in nature was at once the love and prayer part and the pleasure part I am coincidentally finding in a perfect tiramisu at the same time as the main fictional character is eating just the same in Rome- what a great sign that I am on the same wave as the Universe. I have in my bag the Red Book with the most brilliant to-depth analysis and movingly sincere description of ones true struggle of the soul and all its depths, and on my table open a popular easy-to-read author who asks me in the words of Rumi- what are the 3 most important things that you want to have in your life? And I see I am flowing along just as necessary, half in seriousness, half in jest, there is no oppositions in these totally different teachers at this very moment.

I have entered the part of magic, this is what is needed after the dissolution of opposites. There is nothing necessary anymore, now it is about your heart and your hearts desire. 

(What are your soul's three essential desires?)

For me I would perhaps say- travel, beauty, and freedom.

I won't say love cause love is not something to ask for I feel, or to get or to have. Love is what comes naturally from living your life as you are made to live it, according to your own path and your own heart. Love is the gift that follows your being true to yourself. If you don't abandon yourself, neither will love leave your side.

Gilbert writes that Rumi said- if one of those three things are in contradiction with another, you will never have an easy joyful experience.

I can stress also- bravery is needed. Sometimes dissatisfaction creeps up the heart. For me it comes when I am too long in one place, when I am confusing my need for insecurity for the life of security, it is easy to do so. The world revolves around family, security, and it is easy to begin to think the thoughts of others cause aren't our minds all inter-twined? 

Dissolve the polarities, visit gladly the depths of Hell and dissolve the illusion of the concept of Heaven as well as all concepts. But that is not enough- know what you need personally and what you can't be happy without and have courage to never compromise. It really does only harm to be unselfish in this way- to give up your ideals and desires, to adjust and conform for the sake of others, our magic is personal and yes it may be selfish at times to follow, but perhaps that's why the magician in the Red Book says- you must give up solace if you want to learn the way of Magic. 

My perfect day ends with the perfect ending to the perfect book. The final lines of the Red Book say- "This is the way". Go, fly AND fall totally, have world-altering adventures in dreams and in life, let them be as blissful and as excruciating as they come, be not afraid of anything, go divinely mad to your very limits of experience, follow totally everything that comes up in your consciousness- and that will be the way, and the only way.

Meditation on death

"All of Man's problems stem from his inability to sit quietly with himself"~ Pascal

I would go one step further. Man's problems in continuous true living stem from his inability to die once in a while to himself. 

"The unwillingess to think of death is itself a kind of death, for the poignancy of life is inseparable from the knowledge of its decay." Philip Kapleau

Even at times when all seems to be fine, life is beautiful, though the mind of course still feels all the atrocities and sees the all the madness of this age, but somehow there is an underlying peace in knowing that everything is a process of energy, we are in the way of evolving, darkness is as necessary as light, merely a downward curve of the whole circle-there is positivism, there is love.... yet day after day the peace slowly loses a certain energy, the middle way dulls the blissful feeling of life slowly but surely. Unless we are fully enlightened then slowly but surely the mundane, the adversities with some aspects of the mirror that this society is- start to erode the joy and start to seed in habitual feelings of reaction, of unease. The peace slowly erodes into chaos, the largeness of our body shrinks into ego in difficult moments, the mountain once again becomes the idea of a mountain. This is the time to reaffirm life, to rejuvenate that feeling of joy from it, that feeling of utter being in the moment with all of ones soul. It is much said that we need the opposite to get back to life, we need to feel death, cause the feeling of life is connected to the feeling of death. You cannot really know one side without knowing both. Death meditations are wonderful tools, here's what Osho said about it-

[A sannyasin, who is leaving, says: Would you say something about dying? I’m very much engaged with that. I awoke last night and suddenly I saw how absolute it was. I’ve never seen it before like that – I could hardly get any air. In response to Osho’s query she says she likes Kundalini meditation best.]

Osho - So continue Kundalini in the morning, and in the night before going to sleep, start a death meditation. 

Just lie down, put the light off, and start feeling that you are dying. Relax the body and feel that you are dying, so you cannot even move the body – even if you want to move the hand, you cannot. Just go on feeling that you are dying – a four or five-minute feeling that you are dying, dying, and that the body is dead. And through this five-minute experience of dying you will feel a totally different quality of life. The body is almost dead – it is a corpse – but you are more alive than ever! And when the body is dead, the mind by and by stops thinking – because all thinking is associated with life. When you are dying, the mind starts dropping. After two or three months you will be able to die within five minutes. The body will be dead and you will have just a pure awareness, a luminous awareness. Just something like a blue light, that’s all. You will feel a blue light just near the third-eye centre, just a small blue flame. That is the purest form of life. And when that blue flame starts being felt there, just fall asleep.

So your whole night will be transformed into a death meditation, and in the morning you will feel so alive, more than you have ever felt – so young, so fresh, and so full of juice that you can give to the whole world. You will feel so blessed that you can bless the whole world.

And this death meditation will make you aware that death is an illusion. It does not really happen – nobody has ever died and nobody can really die. Because we are too much attached to the body, it seems like death; because we think the body is our life, we think it is terrible. And this is one of the greatest preparations for death. One day death will come: before it comes, you will be ready, you will be ready to die!

When buddha was dying, he asked permission from his disciples. He said, ’Now I am ready to die. Within a few minutes I will disappear into myself. If you have to ask something, you can ask it.’ They had nothing to ask, because for the whole life he had been talking to them. And this was no time to ask anything – even if they had many questions, this was no time to ask them. They started crying and weeping. He said, ’Don’t cry and weep – because my whole message for the whole of my life has been this, that nothing dies. I’m simply going home... I am turning in.’

Then he sat in his posture, closed his eyes, and it is said that people could see that his body started dying. They could see that the body was becoming a corpse – and he was alive! The body turns into a corpse: that is the first phase, buddhists say, of death. In the second phase, his thoughts started disappearing. Those who were very very aware, those disciples who were real meditators, could see his thoughts disappearing, falling from his head just like old leaves falling from a tree. They could see that the thoughts had been renounced: the second stage was fulfilled.Then the third stage: his heart, his feelings, started disappearing. They could see the smoke arising and the cloud arising, and everything was gone. And then the fourth stage: he disappeared into the unknown. Those who were enlightened amongst his disciples could see even that, that his drop had fallen into the ocean. 

These four stages: first start a simple meditation of five minutes of dying. Then just watching for the blue light to appear at the third eye. Then go to sleep. By and by, you will be able to see all these four stages. Slowly, slowly, you will become aware – and that will be the greatest preparation. And then you can really die!

Source: " For Madmen Only (Price of Admission: Your Mind) " -  Osho